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Viet Cong Attack Bien Hoa Air Base

November 1, 1964

1964-11-01_110303-F-XN622-011
1964-11-01_110303-F-XN622-011
The aftermath of a Viet Cong mortar attack on Bien Hoa Air Base, November 1964. (National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)

Viet Cong troops attack Bien Hoa Air Base in South Vietnam with mortars. In 30 minutes they kill four and wound 72 people, destroy or damage as many as 30 aircraft, and demonstrate that base operations in South Vietnam are vulnerable to direct enemy attacks. The incident is the first of at least 475 attacks on primary air bases in South Vietnam over the course of the war.1

1John Schlight, A War Too Long: The USAF in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 17–18; Schlight, The USAF in Southeast Asia: The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1999), 15–16. Regarding total number of aircraft destroyed or damaged, see Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1981), 253–54, (which includes South Vietnamese aircraft). Regarding total number of attacks, see: Roger P. Fox, Air Base Defense in the Republic of Vietnam, 1961–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1979), 173, 204.; Walter J. Boyne ed., Air Warfare: International Encyclopedia, V.1 (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2002), 82.